An Overview of IEEE802.11 Wireless LAN Technologies?

Wireless Communication is an application of science and technology that has come to be vital for modern existence. Wireless communication is an ever developing field, and the future holds many possibilities in this area. One expectation for the future in this field is that, the devices can be developed to support communication with higher data rates and more security. This paper provides a detailed study of the available wireless LAN technologies and the concerned issues. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are cost effective and desirable gateways to mobile computing. They allow computers to be mobile, cable less and communicate with speeds close to the speeds of wired LANs. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was the first logical solution to secure WLANs. However, WEP suffered many problems which were partially solved by IEEE802.1x protocol. As the technology continues to move from wired to wireless, the wireless LAN (Local Area Network) has become one of the most popular networking environment.